Los Angeles' gun buyback event to be held today

Source: Los Angeles Times

The city of Los Angeles is holding its annual gun buyback event at two locations Wednesday in an event that was moved up several months in response to the deadly elementary school shooting in Newtown, Conn.

LAPD officials are to be on hand to take back firearms at the L.A. Memorial Sports Arena and the Van Nuys Masonic Temple from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. The guns can be turned in anonymously, with no questions asked, officials said.

The city is offering up to $100 in Ralphs gift cards for handguns, shotguns and rifles, and up to $200 in gift cards for assault weapons.

Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa created the gun buyback program in 2009. So far, it is credited with getting close to 8,000 firearms off the streets.

14. At best it would be a neutral thing

If the gun hasn't been used in a crime yet there's a good chance it won't be going forward.

But what if some widow brings in a very expensive gun owned by her late husband, a gun whose value she had no idea of , and the LAPD gives her 100 bucks for a 5000$ dollar collector's item, which has happened BTW.

28. Buy back hate

I donít know that I ďhateĒ gun buy backs (how can you buy something back that was never yours to begin with?) but I donít really see the point either. I do take issue with the fact that a criminal can dispose of a gun used in a crime and get paid for it though. Iíd also like to see them be a little more fair when someone shows up with a collectorís item gun (say a Coltís Python) and instead of handing them the 100$ dollar gift card without saying a word having an actually licensed firearm dealer on site to tell the person the actual value of the gun and give them a chance to sell it for what itís really worth.

22. What does it matter how they get rid of the gun?

23. Because it's a way of destroying evidence.

Filed off serial numbers can often be raised. Discarded guns in fields or trash cans, or you name it, can be ballistic fingerprinted and tested to see if they were used in crimes, and maybe tie some evidence to a person, following the chain of ownership of the weapon, etc.

If you turn in a gun to the police buy-back program, it gets cut in half and destroyed, usually melted down. No questions are asked. No serial numbers checked. No barrels fingerprinted. Etc.

You essentially have a foolproof way to dispose of a gun that was either stolen, or even used in a crime, in a manner that severs any evidence link between the person and the gun.

33. They could just as easily bury it somewhere.

34. If it was ever found for any reason

then the process begins. Ballistic print, match any crimes? Find the manufacture's sales records. What retailer took it in shipment. Who bought it. Find that person. How did the gun move to a new owner, was it stolen, did that theft have any evidence that might expose the person responsible... etc.

Weapons are found like that all the time.

Go to a buyback program, get a 100 gift card, and the gun is destroyed in a foundry...